


I hope that you burn

by scorpiusismypatronus



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: :(( sorry zoe, AN ASSHOLE - Freeform, F/F, Girls in Love, I TRIED NOT TO DO THIS WHY DID I —, I'm leading by example ok, IDK WHY THE STUPID NICKNAMES AT THE END JUST WORK WITH IT THEYRE SOFT™, Implied Sexual Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Past physical abuse, and autistic, and they don't understand social boundaries, at 3am, autistic lesbians, based off a hamilton lyric, girls burning letters and discussing their trauma ft disney references and homosexuality, help me... - Freeform, hence why Zoe’s spilling her heart out to a stranger, here we are, im not, implied cocsa, maybe someday…, of COURSE I mentioned kleinsen, oh see I mentioned it in the tags because, past emotional abuse, soRRY pet peeve i'm done, they're lesbians, this WASNT SUPPOSED TO BE SHIPPY BUT HERE WE ARE, well I am but, who do you think I am?, y'all will learn to tag…, zoe?knowing how to communicate?it’s less likely than you think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 16:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14794358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiusismypatronus/pseuds/scorpiusismypatronus
Summary: she’ll burn every letter connor wrote, and every letter evan wrote for him too





	I hope that you burn

**Author's Note:**

> appreciate Zoe bl e a s e i'm dyign

 

Zoe Murphy was made of fire. She used to be starlight and cold night air but now she was fire.

Evan _fucking_ Hansen. Evan. Fucking. Hansen.

She gathered the letters from under her bed. The ones Evan had given her, _“Because there’s Zoe, and all my hope is pinned on Zoe”_ and _“Zoe’s star cuffed jeans and braided hair”_ and _“I wish we were closer, you know?”_ and _“I miss her”_ and _“I wish I could erase what I’d done.”_ The ones he’d passed her when they were younger, when she was six and he was eight, _“Do you think mom and dad hate us?”_ _“Can I use your crayons after dinner?” “Do you want to play a game?”_ The ones he'd slipped under her door later in life. _“Fuck you.” “I hope you die.” “You worthless, lazy piece of shit.”_ The words he’d etched into her heart. _Cruel. Worthless. Ugly. Stupid. Lazy. Bitch. Slut. Fat. Heartless. Monster. Whore. Liar. Selfish. Asshole. Attention seeker_.

She gathered the letters from under her bed and inside her heart and snuck out her window, yellow pajama pants brushing the ground, black tank top not covering enough skin to keep her from shivering. 

Her hair fell in her eyes and she was too exhausted to blow it out of her face. She trudged over to the park, sitting down on the swing-set and kicking at the dew-wet grass below her feet. 

Zoe stared down at the slips of paper and then began looking for her box of matches. She was digging it out of her pocket when she heard a rustling noise and turned around, heart racing in her chest.

“Zoe?”

“…Alana?”

The two girls had never really gotten a chance to talk, but sitting on the cold swing with Alana standing a few feet away in a pink cropped sweatshirt and high-waisted jean shorts, she’d not felt this close to anyone in a long time.

“What are you doing?” Alana asked.

“Burning stuff,” Zoe said, giving up on opening the packaging by herself and ripping it open with her teeth.

“What stuff?” Alana asked, taking a seat on the swing next to her.

“Letters from my brother. Or _Evan_ , I suppose.”

“…What?”

“Oh, shit, did he not tell you?!”

“Tell me what?”

Zoe brushed her hair out of her eyes, clutching the stack of paper to her chest. “Evan fucking Hansen, he — all the letters and — it was all fake. He made it all up.”

“You’re joking,” Alana said blankly.

Zoe shook her head. “The ‘suicide note?’ Evan wrote it to himself for some kind of therapy assignment. The letters from Connor he wrote himself. Backdated emails or some shit. I don’t know. He had us all fooled.”

“Oh my God,” Alana whispered. “You mean it was all — I mean, I suspected — but— but what about — what about _‘you will be found,’_ what about the suicide note, what…?”

“No one found him,” Zoe said, and her heart grew cold and afraid as she realized — “oh, fuck.”

“What?”

She shook her head, burying her face in the papers. “I don’t think — Alana — I don’t think Evan fell out of that tree. I think he _jumped_.”

“Oh God,” Alana whispered. “And that’s why — if it was fake — the letter — oh God.”

“Yeah,” Zoe mumbled. “So I’m out here burning these letters, or I will be. Later. After I— I didn't even think of that. Do you think everything he said was a lie?”

“I don’t know,” Alana said. 

“Me neither,” Zoe sighed. “Um… Do you wanna burn shit with me?”

“Is that legal?” Alana questioned, standing up nevertheless and walking over to where Zoe sat.

Zoe stood up. “Who knows. The grass is wet, though, nothing will catch on fire. Except the papers, obviously.”

“…Okay.”

“Wait, really?” Zoe asked, a little excited.

“If you really want to,” Alana confirmed.

Zoe jumped down from the swing and sat criss-cross on the grass, patting the space next to her. Alana sat, tossing her braids out of her face.

“What do you — how are you going to go about this? Just light the whole thing on fire, or…?”

“I’m thinking of reading and then burning them. Evan’s first. Then Connor’s. To really drive it home, y’know? Evan’s Connor is gone, younger Connor is gone, the real Connor is gone. All that I'm left with now is me.”

Alana hummed slightly. “Is that bad?”

“Well, _yeah_ ,” Zoe scoffed a bit, “because it’s, y’know, me.”

“You’re not that bad to be around,” Alana said. 

Zoe felt her heart flutter. “You just haven’t been around me long enough to get tired of me.”

Alana mumbled something and Zoe tilted her head. “Come again?”

“I said, ‘I’m willing to hang around and see if that’s true.’”

“Oh my God," Zoe giggled. Full on _giggled_ , like a sixth grader being asked to the spring dance. “Well, be my guest.”

Alana hummed a couple notes and Zoe gasped. “Beauty and the Beast!”

“ _Yes_ ,” Alana grinned. 

“Burning things,” Zoe redirected, still smiling.

“Right,” Alana said, edging closer to the other girl. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Zoe smiled a little bit before getting out the first letter.

“ _Dear Evan Hansen, turns out today wasn’t a good day after all. This isn't going to be an amazing week, or an amazing year. Because… why would it be? Oh, I know, because there’s Zoe, and all my hope is pinned on Zoe, who I don't even know, and who doesn’t know me. But maybe if I did, maybe if I could just talk to her, then maybe, well, maybe nothing would be different at all, I wish everything was different. I wish I was a part of something. I wish that anything I said mattered. To anyone. But, let's face it, would anyone notice if I just… disappeared tomorrow? Sincerely, your best and most dearest friend, me._ ”

Zoe stared down at the words she'd read a million times before glancing up at Alana and dragging a match across the top of the box, the tip of it catching on fire. “Fuck Connor,” Zoe said, tapping the flame to the paper, watching it burn, the tiniest sliver of calm falling over her.

“ _Dear Evan Hansen_ ,” she began again, her tone more bitter. “ _I wish I could be closer to Zoe. Her and her braided hair and star cuffed jeans. It’s probably weird that I know this much about her_ — yes, Evan, it really is — _but I wish we were, ya know, normal siblings, and knowing what she likes could make a connection between us, you know? Love, Connor._ ” She threw it on the ground along with a new match, backing away from the fire and grabbing another paper. 

“ _Dear Evan Hansen, we’ve been way too out of touch. Things have been crazy and it sucks that we don’t talk that much. I mean, I love my parents, but each day’s another fight. Do you think if I stopped doing drugs everything might be alright?? Well, I’ll take your advice, and try to be more nice or whatever. You know what? I’m turning around. Wait and see. Sincerely, Connor_.”

“ _Dear Evan Hansen, do you ever wish you could erase everything you’d done? Because I wish I could make what happened with Zoe better. I wish everything was better. Love, me_.”

She huffed and threw it into the fire, too. Alana slid over next to her, tugging a purse or backpack of some kind off her shoulder and grabbing a water bottle. “Just in case.”

“Thanks,” Zoe mumbled. “ _Dear Evan Hansen, how are things with Jared? We both know about your big gay crush on him_ — why would Evan write that?” Zoe giggled. “She knew we were gonna be reading it, like, why make it up?”

“Did — did Jared know? That it was fake?” Alana asked.

Zoe opened her mouth. Closed it again. “Um. Maybe, actually, now that I think about it? If he — it’s the kind of thing he'd do,” she nodded to herself. “Write himself into this weird fucked up self insert fanfic as the love interest.”

“Okay, me," Alana smiled grimly. “Last time I wrote fucked up self insert fan fiction about my best friend and his dead best friend, I made myself the love interest too.”

“Oh, yeah, that happens to me all the time,” Zoe added sarcastically, leaning against Alana’s shoulder to continue reading. “— _so don’t bother denying it. You got the history project done okay?? Love, Connor_.”

Zoe sighed, tossing that one too and unfolding the last fake letter that she had with her. “ _Dear Evan Hansen, life in rehab has been… alright? I mean, I like the yoga, and the sharing circles every night. But, dude. These stories sometimes scare you half to_ death _, man. So many people end up sucking dick for meth. It’s okay though. I mean, at least they’re letting me listen to music. You've got one guess as to who I'm listening to. (MCR. It’s always MCR.) Sincerely, me._ ”

She threw that one in the fire too and pulled out the smaller, crumpled papers.

“‘ _Zoe I have 5 leafs for the money for the store_.’ We had this, God, this whole society out in the backyard. We used leaves as money,” she recalled before chucking it into the fire and moving onto the next paper.

“‘ _Do you think mom and dad hate us?’_ No. They loved you. They hate _me_. ‘ _Can I use your crayons if you can use my dragon action figures_?’ I said yes, by the way. ‘ _Do you want to play the game?_ ’” Zoe paused, paper scraps crumpled in her hands. She dropped the first two letters in the fire and kept the third. “I don’t remember the game.”

It took Alana a moment to catch on to what the was implying. “ _Oh_.”

“To be fair, I don’t remember much of _anything_ from my childhood, but that’s especially blurry.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, well.” She shrugged, desperately trying to find something to lighten the conversation. She shrugged again and tossed the paper into the fire. 

“ _‘Friendly reminder,’_ ” she read off from another paper, “ _‘that you're still a worthless piece of shit.’_ Was that from… yeah, I think that was Disney. Fucker.” She tossed that paper, too, curling into herself as she read off the next few and tossed them in the fire, the heat coaxing tears from her eyes regardless of her feelings towards it. “Oh, this one’s from the second time I tried to off myself. It’s rather eloquent, too. ‘ _I wish you’d succeeded_.’ Short, succinct, to the point…” she scoffed. “And in the fire she goes. Sad to destroy such a wonderful piece of art, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

“Zoe.”

“Hm?”

Alana twirled one of her braids between her fingers. “You deserve better than half-assed quips about your trauma.”

Zoe tried to think about a good way to respond to her without including a meme or making everything worse. “That’s where you’re wrong, kiddo.” … _Without_ including a meme.

“I don’t have a good meme reference to shoot back,” Alana said, “but seriously, Zoe.” She tapped out a rhythm on her knee. “You deserve more.”

Zoe shrugged. “Well, I’m not getting it, so what’s the point of… hoping I will?” Her voice was laced with sarcasm or something akin to it but it was an honest question, and Alana seemed to realise that. Or maybe she just didn’t understand sarcasm. But either way, she slid closer to Zoe and braced her palms on her knees, leaning forward. 

“You _will_. I promise you will.” Alana stood and held out a hand. Zoe took it. “You’re… _you_. I —” She huffed. “If you wanna do great things, you can. Okay? Okay. You aren’t allowed to disagree with me. I make the rules.”

“Sounds great,” said Zoe, smiling a little for the first time since she’d started to cry. “I — Thanks. Thank you.”

“I’m just telling the truth,” Alana smiled back.

The two of them stood there for a moment, still smiling like idiots, before Alana said, “Do you want to stay over at my place tonight?”

“Sure,” Zoe nodded. “Thanks. God, I — thank you.”

“‘Course,” Alana smiled.

Zoe stared down at the fire, which was dwindling due to the lack of papers being thrown into it. Without a word, Alana poured her water on it, effectively stifling the flame.

“Let’s go,” Alana said. “C’mon, starlight.”

Zoe found herself blushing at the nickname. “All right, candlelight. Let’s go,” she smiled back.


End file.
